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November 05, 2008 07:08 PM UTC

The morning after, first impressions

  • 31 Comments
  • by: Steve Balboni

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

I’m still recovering from the party last night and the months of physical and emotional exhaustion that went into making this happen. I’ll have more when I have some time to reflect but a few things jump out at me immediately from last night’s results.

Here in Colorado we saw Barack Obama win more votes than Mark Udall. All conventional wisdom says that Colorado Democrats will always outperform national Democrats here in the state. The CW held that national Democrats just don’t play as well to Colorado’s western independents. Throw that out the window now folks. Mark Udall is a westerner through and through, he comes from a family with a long and storied history in the American west… and he was just outperformed by a young black man from Chicago named Barack Hussein Obama. That’s remarkable. Colorado has evolved more politically in the last decade than even the most hopeful of us had thought.

Betsey Markey in Colorado’s 4th Congressional won an incredibly decisive victory by a margin that no one saw coming. Congratulations to her and the people of her Congressional district who will now finally have real representation in Washington. Marilyn Musgrave and her brand of fear-mongering divisive politics were roundly rejected by the voters. It’s a win that restores your faith in the wisdom of the voters.

I have a similar reaction to Bob Schaffer’s loss. Colorado’s voters have rendered a clear verdict on the GOP’s culture warriors. Schaffer floundered for months, with most Colorado voters (according to polling that I saw) finding him to be quite unlikeable and his policy positions to be a decade too late. Colorado is now a blue state and far-right candidates like Schaffer and Musgrave are seeing their base rapidly disappear.

In the state House Bernie Buescher’s surprising loss in Grand Junction opens the door for Anne McGihon to become the next Speaker of the Colorado House.

In the state Senate Republican incumbent Shawn Mitchell won a solid victory in SD23 over embattled challenger Joe Whitcomb. Recent revelations about Whitcomb’s past legal troubles were clearly a factor, this race was expected to be much closer. Evie Hudak eeked out a very hard fought race in SD19. That race was a true battle between not just the candidates but also the the parties and their various interested groups. Democrats can feel good about winning such a hard fought race. Congratulations to Linda Newell for holding off far-right reactionary Lauri Clapp in SD26, Newell’s margin of victory was just 81 votes.

What of Governor Ritter’s thumping on Amendment 58? Given the personal investment that the governor made into Amendment 58 I think this loss is fairly significant for him. He made a personal appeal to voters in the closing weeks and he was flat out rejected. It’s been 2 years since the governor cruised to a 17 point victory. Since that time he has failed to pass any major pieces of legislation in health care, education or transportation. His achievements in environmental policy are largely illusory as most of the ground work for that legislation was laid prior to his term, he didn’t birth the New Energy Economy to a large extent he merely blessed the work of others. Ritter’s popularity has been in a free fall for the last year and he chose to pick another fight with the oil and gas industry (remaking the oil and gas commission and new oil and gas regulations being his first skirmishes with the industry). If he had won his challenge to industry would be framed as a courageous stand. A resounding defeat though makes one doubt his viability in 2010. He is a wounded governor and he will need to regroup quickly in the coming weeks to have a successful 2009 legislative session. This is clearly the low point for Ritter, has he reached bottom?

On a related note one has to wonder if Amendment 59’s loss could have been prevented if there had been better coordination and cooperation between Ritter’s office and the Speaker. 59 would have begun to undo the ties that bind Colorado’s budget and Colorado’s policy makers. A win would have fundamentally changed Colorado’s fiscal position and had a profound and immediate effect on policy making in the state. Was it wise to try and run both 58 and 59 this year? Would it have made more sense for Romanoff and Ritter to prioritize and focus on getting one or the other through?

Congratulations to all of the winning candidates and campaigns, my condolences to those of you who ended up on the wrong side of the ledger last night.

I’ll get more inside the numbers later and perhaps a bit more reflective on the Obama victory for now though these are my first impressions the morning after.

cross-posted at http://steampoweredopinions.blogspot.com/2008/11/morning-after-first-impressions.html

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31 thoughts on “The morning after, first impressions”

  2. We just have blue majorities for now. Calling Colorado a blue state seems to imply that we’re now going to be reliably Democratic like New Jersey or California. But that just is not the case.

    This event no more means that the results of eight or six years ago nationally or back in the 90s locally made for a permanent Republican majority.

    No, what this means is that liberal isn’t as bad a word and that one can win against a Republican, but that it only true in Colorado when the Republican is corrupt as well as running a bad campaign during a good year for Democrats.

    On the national side I expect for many voting for Obama, like my parents, it was health care and economic bad times that drove them into the arms of the Democratic party nationally. But they still voted for Shaffer and in the case of some I know Amendment 48 as well.  

    1. Whatever the motivations of people who voted for Obama and also Schaffer and Amendment 48 it’s clear that those people are a significant minority. Schaffer lost big and Amendment 48 was absolutely crushed. I’m not sure how this small minority of voters you describe support your thesis that Colorado is not a blue state.

      Colorado has not just flipped because of the national political mood, remember we were ahead of the national curve in 2004. Colorado has flipped in large part due to demographic changes that have taken place in recent years – growing Latino population, educated whites from the coasts. Those demographic changes indicate that the Democratic Party will enjoy a growing base of support in Colorado.

      Colorado is a blue state today and for the foreseeable future. I made no claims of “permanence.”

      1. I was dead wrong about Markey in CD-3. I never thought it would happen. And Amendment 48 was not as close as I thought it could be. The times they are a changing.

        But you’re a fool if you think that voters in Colorado won’t abandon the Democrats just to be contrary the minute the Republicans stop running people who care more about abortion than roads.

        1. Are you really arguing that the only reason Dems win in Colorado is because the GOP is too far right? That’s certainly a factor for some independents but the shift towards Dems in Colorado is part of a fundamental shift in the demographics of our state.

          1. At a minimum it would make it much more competitive. If the Republicans start running candidates like Steve Ward then they will be competitive across the state – even in Boulder.

            The problem is that most Republican candidates are 1) want to tell us how to live our life (abortion, marriage, etc), 2) want to eliminate government, or 3) are just plain mediocre (as campaigners) and the GOP needs a warm body to run.

            When (if?) the GOP decides to leave social issues to individuals and embrace that there is an important role for the government in the state – then watch out as they will be very competitive.

            1. When (if?) the GOP decides to leave social issues to individuals and embrace that there is an important role for the government in the state – then watch out as they will be very competitive.

              What if Republicans embraced the Democratic platform, then there would be no stopping them!

              It would certainly help them to moderate their positions on social issues but there is something much deeper going on in this state. Not to belabor the point on demographics but more Democratic type voters are moving here.

              I hesitate to say that demographics are destiny but this is a real problem that the GOP is facing all across the country, it just so happens to have come faster to our state. Colorado’s population is growing rapidly and  an average Colorado voter looks different today than they did in even 2002.

              Some really good reading here,

              http://www.brookings.edu/paper…

              http://www.brookings.edu/event…

              http://www.washingtonmonthly.c…

              and of course the book that started it all “The Emerging Democratic Majority”

              http://www.amazon.com/Emerging…

                1. Yep, all of those things came together to get us where we are today. Remove any one of those factors and we don’t end up where we are currently.  

      2. “Amendment 48 was absolutely crushed.”

        Its campaign was run by an idealistic but inexperienced 21-year-old girl. It was a clear case of overreaching Evangelical enthusiasm without political realism.

        The Catholic Conference didn’t endorse it, and warned it was the wrong time to challenge Roe v. Wade.

        People knew the bill wouldn’t have any effect. I know lots of dedicated, rigorous pro-lifers who had second thoughts about the amendment, and probably voted no.

        1. (For the first time – make a note of it!)

          Heck, Newsie posted a figure showing 48 going down by a 2-1 margin in El Paso County.

          Nonetheless, I believe that abortion is all but dead as an effective topic for the GOP. Most people don’t like it which is why it worked for a while, but there has been no victory for the pro-lifers at the ballot box for quite some time. This amendment may have been the most radical proposed, but many more abortion initiatives have gone down to defeat.

          1. Every anti-gay amendment passed.  These things happened in a mix of red and blue states.

            So, you’re very right, but there’s a brand new batch of crap coming.

            1. I really don’t like the antigay stuff happening at the ballot box, especially AR’s completely fucked ban on adoptions. (Anyone remotely familiar with adoption stats knows that you can’t be more anti-family than to support a ban on any law-abiding adult’s privilege to adapt a parentless child.) But I think most of that is spent as well and I don’t see any other issues the social cons can use to drum up support for their radical agenda.

    2. It doesn’t mean we’re blue in the sense of northeastern style liberal blue but it means that more people here in Colorado are a lot more comfortable with what our own western brand of Dems have to offer than they are with the Republican party of Dick Wadhams, Tom Delay and Focus on the Family have to offer.

      True, things could change as fast as they have since 2000 but only if the Colorado Republican Party changes. And only if they realize the change they need isn’t being truer to conservative principles.  

      The change they need is learning how to appeal to the  dominant middle again, as the Dems have learned to do.  In spite of all the talk from recent R losers, Obama didn’t win decisively in Colorado, including in a county like Arapahoe, because Rs need to get back to conservative basics.   The immediate future is centrist and populist, not right and corporatist, and  right now  Colorado Dems fit the bill.  As long as that remains true, Colorado remains blue

      1. For the federal offices we’re now clearly blue. Markey’s margin especially but also Udall’s show that this state is very comfortable electing Boulder Liberals. Part of it is the economy, part of it is Obama, but a very large part of it is that this state likes what we Dems are selling at the federal level.

        But look at the state level and it’s a very different picture. At the state level it looks like the dial swung back a bit to the Republicans (I take the amendment vote as basically a blanket no on everything.) Buescher’s & Whitcomb’s loses are I think more party line losses than ones on them specifically.

        And Ritter is in trouble. He’s a nice popular guy who, right now, can’t point at anything substantive he has accomplished. Now just being competent with no major problems could sell well when Bush was president. But if in 2 years Obama & Co. are accomplishing great things and here we’re still just meandering along on auto-pilot, then he’ll be in trouble.

      2. And a lot of us are not perfectly happy in the Democratic fold. I would vote Republican myself if they didn’t keep running anti-gay scumbags who want to break government rather than fix it.

        1. I’m struck by just how conservative many of my gay friends are, especially the small businessmen who rail at government regulation and red tape with the best of them. Many would vote Republican if it wasn’t for the annual visits by goon squads quoting leviticus at them and consigning them to Hell.

            Dignity first, then conservative politics is a good rule, I guess.    

            1. and drop-dead gorgeous Morgan Caroll and you divided your attentions between us …You’re either crazy or very happily married;-)

               I know, we ain’t supposed to say things like drop-dead gorgeous but hell, she’s smart too and Mama taught me not to lie.

        2. My point exactly.  When more Colorado voters were more uncomfortable with Dems they saw as too liberal than they were with government hating homophobes they voted for far right Republicans they weren’t always perfectly happy with. As those voters became frustrated by the incompetent corrupt ultra-hawk Bush administration and a state legislature that got nothing done while wasting time on gay bashing, carrying on about flag burning, etc. they  started giving Dems a chance.

          The result is current Dem domination that won’t be defeated by Shaffers and Musgraves going farther to the right.  

  3. from DailyKOS we have a map of counties that voted more Democratic and those that voted more Republican. I discount Arizona and Alaska because those were the home state teams and that skews things (as does Illinois & Delaware – but they are very Dem already).

    So it looks like Appalachia, into the Ozarks, and the bayous of Louisiana are Republican territory. And those three are a distinct cultural area, and I think more insular than most of the rest of the country.

    Aside from that, the trend is Democratic, even in Utah & Idaho. With the biggest exception being some clueless country right here in Colorado!!!

  5. by the Charlotte News & Observer

    Democrat Barack Obama is the unofficial winner in North Carolina, but the victory over Sen. John McCain won’t be sealed until provisional ballots are counted and certified next month.

    Unofficial returns show Obama ahead by 13,746 votes.

    Trends over the last 14 years point to Obama having a wider lead after the provisionals are counted, said Gary Bartlett, executive director of the State Board of Elections.

    “It widens the lead for the winner, no matter who that may be,” Bartlett said.

    His office will know tomorrow how many provisional ballots the counties have. Usually, about 65 percent of the voters who cast provisional ballots were eligible.

    That adds another 15 electoral college votes to Obama, whose total is now 364 to McCain’s 178.  

  6. Oh the stench of turd blossom’s hypocrisy isn’t detected by the kool-aide drinkers over at FixedNews.

    Seriously, the only person buying this BS is Bill Kristol.

  7. From the Oregonville, Jeff Merkley will defeat Gordon Smith in Oregon’s U.S. Senate race

    Democrat Jeff Merkley has ousted Republican Gordon Smith from his U.S. Senate seat, The Oregonian projects.

    Merkley, a five-term state lawmaker and former Habitat for Humanity director, took advantage of a surge of Democratic support to win a close, bitterly fought battle with Smith, who has served 12 years in Washington.

    Looks like only two Udall family members are headed to Washington

  8. “I have a similar reaction to Bob Schaffer’s loss. Colorado’s voters have rendered a clear verdict on the GOP’s culture warriors.”

    This evaluation would only be credible if Schaffer ran on culture war issues, rather than gas fumes.

    If he ever emphasized his stands on abortion or same-sex marriage, I never heard about it.  Besides, even Californians rejected same-sex marriage this election cycle.

    Nationally, some Republicans will be blaming social conservatives for the loss. This is congenial to the libertarian mindset which infests the internet. This is also a way of not looking at the GOP’s other weaknesses and disasters in foreign and domestic policy. I suspect much the same is true on the local level.

    1. DID go down about three to one. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the social conservative agenda. And yes I know that Shaffer didn’t endorse it. Just saying social conservatism seems to be losing  ground in the mainstream.  

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